an interesting thing is that we are all trained for something.  or we are all training for something.  i happen to train for 3D computer graphics and interactive 3D in an industrial setting.  my wife trains for photography.  my children train in academics for now.  my dad trained in farming and then painting and then teaching and then carpentry.  my brother trained in computers and then social work.  my mom trained in journalism, then motherhood, then art and design and now social work and the list of people i know goes on.  in each thing that we train in, we train to excel.  at least i hope that we do.  we want to be good at what we do.  i’m not trained in home maintenance and repair.  oh, i have some necessary skills and tools.  plumbing is not one of them.  could i do a job? sure, i guess that i could.  it would take days and then take years off my life.  my friend DJ is trained up in plumbing and in home maintenance.  i mentioned yesterday my fun with the leaking drain pipe.  he was able to accomplish in a few hours what would have taken me several days of hmmmmming and hawwwwwing over what to do and measure and cut.  i am very appreciative of his skill and his willingness to help us out in an emergency.  we are very blessed.  DJ, may God bless you as you have blessed us.

1Timothy 4:6 If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. 7Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; 8for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

Training is essential. We must train, not only for life but also in Godliness. It is not natural to us. It is foreign to our flesh. Any of the things that we train in for our livelihood, though they be good things, they too shall pass. Godliness however is something to train for now and for the life we will live with God. We all train for something, but are we intentionally training for the most important thing?

I have to admit.  I don’t like problems.  Recently, we have been noticing some water outside our foundation.  Seemingly leaking from the kitchen sink.  I’ve been doing some sleuthing and I have found that it is in fact a leak.  Today I pulled away the siding and then found where the water was coming from, then went inside and took out the dishwasher, cut through the drywall and identified the leak.  It’s been leaking for a while.  bummer.

I have a friend that is going to help out.  He’s a plumber.  Still, I’m a person that doesn’t handle such problems well.  they consume me.  In essence, I get stuck in a loop.  I can’t get out.  I can’t stop thinking about it.  It is frustrating.  What’s more frustrating is that I know that I’m being that way and I can’t stop it.  That is frustrating.  I’m not supposed to worry or fret and yet I do.  It’s not the end of the world, it’s fixable.  But since I can’t fix it immediately and since I have like zip for experience in plumbing, I freak out and worry about it.  It gets me down.  I have to force, or rather FORCE, myself to think on other things.  One thing that helped today is just trying to recognize the God stuff that is at work in the midst of my non-trial.

God provided a friend who is a plumber that can help us out.  God has orchestrated a cool relationship between us and this couple.  There is, up to this point, no water in my basement and no major damage.   God provides and takes care of us more than I realize.  In the midst of such situations, He is there working.  Who knows what all else will come of this.  For now, I am just thankful that HE is always actively working, regardless of my performance or my do-while-worrying loop.

Father, thanks for your grace and purpose and means all of which are beyond my comprehension and yet I am able to see them.  bless our time tomorrow and this project that we might be back in working order soon. In Christ, Amen.

reading today in 1John again.  Like I was saying, there is not always a quiet place and without quiet I cannot concentrate and if I can’t concentrate then I can really skim over the same section over and over again and not know what I read.  However something did grab my attention and take me down a path of thought…

1John5:3-5For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world - our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Well, lets look at that a minute. If we love God, we keep his commandments. Ok, we’ve talked about that. Our response to the work and love of God, that He has first loved us and we love because HE first loved us naturally takes us into obedience. We are not perfect and it’s not so easy when we are sinners and we mess up, but in general, do you love God’s commandments and recognize that they are the best way to live for your own health? or do you despise them? Do you long to live rightly that God might be glorified or do you just try to hide that you sin. Then go to the next verse and see that HIS commandments are not burdensome. I believe that if you love God and you have been changed, his commands are not a burden but a delight. What is a burden is breaking them and feeling the guilt. Think about it,in Galations 5:22, we see the fruit of the spirit. and what does it say at the end of that verse? That against love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, that against these things there is no law? WHY? because they are what God has called us to. They are what God desires for us and of us. I think you would find few people that would say that any of these things are bad. They are just good living. So they are without burden. But the other things, of which there are laws about, whether of God or of the state, those things are burdensome, there is guilt and there is shame and pain and all sorts of things.

The next part is a litmus test.  You say you love God.  You say you keep his commands.  have you overcome the world.  That would be the world system and it’s ways and paths away from and against God.  If you are truly born of God, then you will overcome the world.  How do you know you have overcome the world?  hmmmmmmm.  it doesn’t mean that you have taken over.  It doesn’t mean that you have went along with it.  It means that you have followed God at His word and chose His commands (to love Him and your neighbor as yourself) flying in the face of the world’s ways which say it is all about you.  So what shows you that you have overcome the world?  your Faith.  Is your faith intact?  have you fallen away?  have you denounced your God?  if not, if you still have faith, then you have not been overcome by the world, you have persevered.

We have one more verse here to consider.  Lots of people have faith.  faith in the Lottery, faith in their jobs.  faith in their spouse.  faith in their addiction.  Whatever it is that we believe in, we can be people of faith.  And John wraps this up here, not leaving anything to chance making sure that people realize that the faith that they must have that fuels their love for God, that enables them overcome the world, that enables them to love others, this faith is in Jesus, believing that He is the son of God.  Only HE can cover your sin and remove the enmity between us and God.

Now… let us consider for a moment this faith that saves us, that enables us, that overcomes the world.  Is it of ourselves?  Is there something in us that produced this faith?  Look for a moment at Ephesians 2:8-10…

Ephesians2:8-10 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast, For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

It is not of us. It is a gift from God that we have faith. He put it there. We don’t know how. through His word, through others speaking His word to us, through reading, through the work of the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the word, we gained faith, not of our own but of God. Why? for good works. Not for our glory, but HIS. Has He put good works before us? Do we accept them and walk in them? or do we shy away? what is the work of God?

John 6:28-29 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

From Jesus mouth we see that the work we are to do is to believe in Him. All things, all glorifying work stems out of faith in Christ Jesus. He gives us faith, faith allows us to believe, believing brings love and obedience for God and His commands which allows us to overcome the world and it allows us to also touch others in all sorts of ways because of faith. taking care of a neighbor. adopting a child. loving your spouse. teaching your child about God. living righteously out of love for God. overcoming the world’s temptations to pull you away from God. All of this is possible because of faith. If we are boasting of our faith or of our works, then we have not faith, for true faith boasts in God and in His son. true faith is a gift.

The snow is falling fairly quickly now.  The street is completely white.  Looking at the news, it appears that we are in for a few inches of snow.  The entire town is at the grocery store, getting ready for the upcoming “lock down.”  For people like me, from Michigan, it is sort of a joke.  I only choose to stay in so that some other individual doesn’t take my car out because they don’t know how to drive on snow.  Other than that, snow doesn’t phase me that much and ice is a nuisance but not a show stopper, unless of course it takes out the power, and then, well, the internet is down and things sort of halt.

 I’m fairly sure that the way things go around here will dictate a snow day tomorrow.  I was even told that it was ok to work from home too, so on all fronts I’m confronted with a snow day tomorrow. 

The fire is burning in the fire place, the smell of wood burning in the house.  The young ones are in bed.  A movie plays downstairs.  I sit here thinking about stuff, stuff from today, stuff to do, stuff to read, my state of emotion and hunger.  Physically I’m not hungry.  I wonder about my hunger.  A week and a few days ago I was on fire, I had a blog surge of like 6-7 posts in a row.  Then Friday came, then Saturday, then Sunday.  I’ve just been tired.  I haven’t been lazy.  There is a project I am working on, a book that I am writing.  That has been taking my time.  I continue to look into and study 1John and I’m listening to John in the car.  I continue to pour things in the tank and at some level I know that they are digested, but on the surface I feel sort of blank.  It takes quiet to get focused and there is not much quiet in my life for now.  I’m thinking that getting up early is the only answer, but it is also the weakness that i cannot seem to beat.  Forcing myself out of bed at 5am just isn’t what it used to be.  I have good intentions, but the warm bed, sleepiness and the closeness of my wife keep me from staying up in the morning.  It is easier just to go back to bed than to force my head into gear.  It is frustrating.  I can feel the truth in Jesus’ words to the disciples in the garden… “the spirit is willing, but the body is weak”.  they fell asleep.  I choose sleep.  and there is not a lot of quiet in the evening and after the children are in bed, I’m almost too tired to think or comprehend.  something must give.  I must make plans and time and then live by it.  not for righteousness of myself, nor justification or acceptance, but because i know that it is the nourishment that I need for my soul.  Lord help me make those decisions and those choices to choose you over comfort and sleep and laxness.

Without the nourishment of the word, one can lose track of simple truths.  Truths like “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers” 1John 3:14.  How simple this is.  Here is another “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” 1John 3:17.  This is incredibly crazy love and incredibly convicting to 21st century american living.  How much we live for ourselves and force people to do the same.  We expect others to care for themselves and we are often shameful or shamed that we have to ask for help.  We are all just expected to take care of number one (that being us).  How can we learn to live as God intends when our culture teaches us otherwise.  What should we do?  Live radically different than the culture.  care for people.  provide for people.  take care of needs that are within our power to meet.  furthermore, expect nothing in return.  keep no record or list of debts owed you for your kindness but do all because of the kindness shown to you by God, for it is by Him alone that we have breathed today, that we have had light today, gravity today.  And so let us care and love abundantly as we have been loved.  How I need more of this in my life, that my time, my resources, even my blood, that it all might be spent in loving and caring for others.  God enable me to spend the time with you that I might spend my life on others.  whether family, friend or stranger, may I meet their needs, whether material, relational or time. Amen.

I have issues with grey.  First, how is it spelled, grey or gray?  I don’t know.  I tend to go with gray and it was hard to title this post “grey” because that is not how I write it.  In fact, grey with an “e” reminds me of like, ummm, earl-grey tea or something like that.  Gray to me is the color name, but after all that, this is not what this post is about.  What this is about is a gray area.  I have issues with gray area.  I like everything to be very black and white, right or wrong, in or out, up or down, etc. etc. etc.  Life is not that way it seems and the gray areas are problematic as you try to navigate life, make decisions, choices etc.  My all this or all that approach doesn’t really work.  At least not in the area of grace.  If you are bad, you get punished, if you are good you get rewarded.  That is logical and makes sense to me, but that is not how life works when it comes down to it.  Often we see that those that are bad get rewarded and those that are good get punished, or so on this world it sometimes seems and it makes us cry out that this is wrong.

We see an example of this in Psalm 73.  Asaph explains how he felt as he watched the wicked getting ahead, living large, rolling wide.  He was tempted to believe it was better to follow them than to deal with the things he had been putting up with as a righteous man.  But he sought to understand this and went to the sanctuary of God and discerned their real end and his real gain(v16-17) Go read Psalm 73 and check it out.  I think we often deal with that temptation, to just let go and follow because it looks like the payoff is better, but our hope is in eternity and those that are satisfied here will have gotten their reward and they will give an account for their hope.

I put that out there because 1John has been difficult for me to read because it says that if you are this way then you can’t be that way.  and so if you take a verse here and a verse there you can either arm yourself against others you know to be sinning, or you can find yourself despairing because you yourself are a sinner.  Again, I point out that you cannot overlook our dependence upon God, upon Christ, to act as our intercessor, to be our mediator to whom we confess our sins and beg forgiveness, which He gives freely.   He gives it freely.

Driving into work this morning, I was listening to my ESV MP3 bible with Max Mclean (sp?).  I have been listening to Luke and now naturally have entered into the book of John.  This morning was somewhere around chapter 7 or so because it is a35 minute ride in and I got into chapter 8.  You know chapter 8, the one where Jesus forgives a woman caught in adultery.  It is an intense scene.  It is shown in Passion of the Christ.  I love this scene, it is moving and it is telling of our condition and it is telling of our feelings about grace.  For those of us bent on the binary system of black white, 0-1, right-wrong, it just messes with your mind.

The people, or rather, the scribes and pharisees bring a woman caught in adultery (obviously a wrong act and a sin) and they place her before Jesus and basically say “we got you now, Moses said to stone such a woman, what say you?”  They were not only looking to stone her, but to stone him too.  I love how Jesus returns to writing in the sand.  Oh to see what it was.  Then his response… “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”  Now their response… silence… then stones hitting the ground… stones meant for her (or him) dropped first by the older… then by the younger… and as they dropped them, confronted with their own sin (remember guilty of one sin, guilty of them all and condemned) they walked away til no one was left.  Then Jesus asked her, “has no one condemned you?”  “no one” she replies.  He responds… “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

I’m undone.  I have no category for this.  I know me and my nature of “this or this” and “since this, then this”.  I’m blown up.  I have to consider the forgiveness that I have been given, the forgiveness that I should give, the grace that I should show.  I have 3 children.  They drive me crazy, they need discipline AND they need grace.  If I work in my flesh and my logic, then I will not show them grace.  So I have to relearn.  I have to figure out how to incorporate the love and forgiveness of God into discipline and consequences.  I have to model forgiveness that they might learn to forgive.  I have to model grace in order that they might learn grace.  There is a harshness of God and there is a forgiveness of God that I cannot overlook and without my children seeing that grace, they might lose hope.

Back to grey, or gray, or rather gray area.  Grace to me is a gray area sometimes because in the tom logic, when you sin, you should be punished.  When you are given grace, it is sort of left undone.  Of course, I appreciate grace that is shown to me.  But when I am thinking about others, I’m not always so grace filled and the grace that I should show others is often to me considered a gray area, where something is not really done.  Or is it?  I, today, think that it does get something done.  It shows for one that revenge is not yours.  It shows that it is not about you and yours.  It shows that you can extend grace like grace has been shown to you.  It models Godliness.   Now, we have to be careful, because people, like little children in my case, can presume upon Grace and start taking advantage of you.  You may give them grace in a way that doesn’t really help them see God at all, but shows them you are a milk-toast.  So you have to connect grace to God, to Jesus and to His work.  And you can show it through these stories that blow your mind up.  Sure the sin content is not necessarily G-rated, but you can leave out the details, because kids understand doing something wrong and they know what happens when they are caught, they catch on quick.

So there is a balance here that is needed in disciplining and giving grace.  And I have very few years to figure it out.

God, thank you for your continued grace upon me.  thank you for these pictures of you through your word that are often beyond comprehension, but get us to take another look at how we live day to day.  Show me how to love and discipline my children in a way that demonstrates all of your attributes, not just the ones that make sense to me.  I need to know you and my children need to know you.  May you bring us together to a greater knowledge and greater knowing of you and your awesomeness and your greatness and your grace.  In Jesus name, our savior and mediator who forgives, AMEN.